Villages gain superfast upgrade

North Deighton and Little Ribston are the two latest villages near Wetherby to benefit from the Superfast North Yorkshire broadband upgrade project.

The scheme for these two rural places is part of the broadband improvements for the whole of North Yorkshire managed by Superfast North Yorkshire.

Selby and Ainsty MP Nigel Adams said: “I am delighted that many homeowners in these villages will now be able to benefit from broadband speeds up to 40 times faster than was previously possible.

“Rather than speeds of less than 1Mbps, many homes will now be able to get 40Mbps or more.”

About 90 per cent of homes and businesses in the county can now access speeds of 25Mbps or more and the attention is now focussed on extending availability even further.

To enable this to happen as soon as possible the Government recently announced that a further £645Million has been made available for broadband upgrade.

Much of the additional money is being provided because many more people than expected are taking up the new service as soon as it is available.

Mr Adams added: “I have been a very active supporter of this project and am delighted that in my constituency we have seen some of the highest demand for the new service as soon as it is made available.

“The speed increase is not automatic because you have to order an upgrade which connects your broadband into the new fibre network.”

The additional £645m was recently announced by Minister for Digital, Matt Hancock who said that it would be made available over the coming years to help take superfast broadband to the most remote and hard to reach places in the UK.

Together with other planned delivery, it is estimated that this could see more than 900,000 extra UK homes and businesses gain access to superfast speeds after the end of this year.

This commitment will take superfast coverage to 98 per cent of the nation over the next few years say the scheme’s experts.

Mr Hancock said: “We are on track to reach 95 per cent by the end of the year, but we know there’s still more to do.”

Mr Adams added: “The additional funding is very welcome and clearly demonstrates the level of commitment within Government to making sure that everybody can benefit from faster broadband availability”.